And This Is How It Starts
by tardisandhogwartscollide
Summary: Sent back in time by the angel, Amy finds her way back to Rory. But life after that isn't what they expected - because the story of Amelia Pond has only just started.
1. First Chapter

**And This Is How It Starts.**

**_Prologue_**

There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, but she's been given a lot of hope: she's been told about how she will go to see and fight pirates, how she'll fall in love with a man who will wait 2000 years to keep her safe.

She's been told that she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, that she will save a whale in outer space.

She's been told that those would be the days that she will never forget.

That this is the story of Amelia Pond.

But this is not how it ends. No. Her story has only just begun.

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**_Chapter 1_**

She was a bit disorientated at first. It was dark, yes, but that wasn't it. Well, she knew she had been sent back in time, possibly even to a different place - and yet she somehow felt different. Like she didn't really belong here. Funny how after all that time on board the TARDIS, constantly visiting places she most definitely didn't belong, this was the first time she actually felt like it. She quickly brushed off that thought, realising that it must've been the way she had travelled. There were more pressing matters at hand.

Rory had to be here somewhere. At least she hoped so, he could have also been sent to a different - "No," she quietly said to herself, "don't even go there." She couldn't start worrying too much now, or she'd be a sobbing ball of panic on the dirty street within seconds.

It had been the same angel - and a weak one at that, the Doctor had said. The Doctor… no, there it was again, the panic, climbing up her throat, making her shut her eyes, grasp at her head and mumble out a seemingly never ending string of "no, no, no, no, no, no" in an attempt to block out every single memory that tried to force its way to her mind - until finally one made it through.

Delight. Her wedding day. Her laughter mingled with… Rory's.

She held onto that thought while she released her hair from her rigid fingers and slowly opened her eyes.

She needed to find him. Obviously they hadn't been sent to the same place - but she wouldn't dare thinking there was any chance he wasn't out there searching New York for her as thoroughly as she was planning to do. Unless… he still didn't believe in her love and thought she'd stayed with the Doctor. No. She had proven her love just minutes ago by jumping off of that building with him.

And if he wasn't looking for her - she'd just have to look twice as hard.

They'd be back together. She'd find her way back to him.

Seeing as she didn't really have anywhere to go and sleep for this night, she decided to just start right away. She quickly formulated a plan and headed towards her first destination.

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A few hours later saw Amy wandering in the general direction of where she thought Central Park to be. She'd planned on visiting every location she remembered going to with the Doctor and Rory.

The problem was that she had no idea where to find those places. First, they'd come to Mr. Grayle's house with the TARDIS, so no way of knowing where that was to find, then she'd been too worried about Rory to memorise the way to Winter Quay as they were driving there… and she wasn't sure if she wanted to face the cemetery yet, even if that was probably the easiest to find.

So after hours of walking around, she'd come to the decision that she needed a break. Her feet hurt, her back even more, and she was tired of hiding in the shadows in order to avoid muggers and murderers (who knew what kind of people walked around New York in the middle of the night?).

When dawn came, Amy tried thinking of the places she knew in this city that could have already opened. She wasn't completely sure when exactly she was, but her late night stroll around the city had told her enough to assume that it was close to the time when she, Rory, the Doctor, and River had been there. It certainly looked a lot like that. So she needed to come up with a public place that she could easily find.

And suddenly she remembered Central Park and their picnic there. So many things had happened between now and then that she had completely forgotten about it…

"Right, Central Park… that can't be too difficult to find…", she mumbled to herself. Being all alone in a big dark city at night, she had somehow taken to talking to herself. She missed having someone else to talk to, and she certainly couldn't wait to finally find Rory.

Rory. A big wave of hope rushed over her. Maybe Central Park was where she was going to find him! Despite her aching feet she doubled her pace, which didn't really mean much because she was extremely exhausted and hadn't been walking very fast to begin with, but she still gave everything in her quest to find that park.

It was the last place they had been where everything was alright and they made happy jokes - before everything went wrong. If she were Rory, this would have been the first place she'd have visited to remember her loved ones.

In the morning light she even came across some early risers who had come out to take a morning walk, and looked nice enough, so she asked them for directions. They had looked a bit frightened at the girl running towards them and stammered out their response in a confused manner, then looked curiously after her.

When she finally made it to the park, she sighed in relief. One step closer. She couldn't wait to get back to Rory, but after her running around the city, she wasn't able to hold the pace she had been walking before. So she strolled through the park, coming across the bridge the Doctor and she had been on while reading River's book, then, after another thirty minutes, she could see the hill where they had all been sitting on while having a picnic, and she picked up her pace again.

So far she couldn't see anyone sitting or standing there, but maybe Rory would be behind the hill… he just had to be. She was getting nearer and nearer. But even as she approached the hill, Rory was nowhere in sight.

She sat down in defeat. Everything that had been held back by the small glimmer of hope of finding Rory again came back full force. She suddenly felt the pain in her feet, she was incredibly hungry, and she had to close her eyes against the sudden burning feeling of approaching tears, which only served to make her feel even more tired.

So she lay back and let her tears carry her to sleep.

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She woke up to being crushed into a desperate hug by another person.

"Whoa, someone's eager this morning," she said groggily. It wasn't rare that she woke up with Rory kissing her awake.

Wait. She opened her eyes to see he had stopped hugging her and now watched her confused and concerned.

"Rory!", she all but screamed, lunging at him again. "I found you."

He clung to her as desperately as she did to him. "How did you - how are you here?", he stuttered into her hair.

"Same as you." She pulled back. "It was the same angel. I couldn't imagine being without you, so I let that angel touch me to get back to you. There was room for one more name, Rory. I knew it was a slim chance that it would actually work, but it was worth a shot, right?" She smiled weakly.

Over his shoulder she could see a woman coming slowly towards them and eyeing them curiously. Well, they had to make a weird sight, no wonder people were staring, so Amy pushed that thought to the back of her mind and finally gave in to the urge to kiss Rory. They hadn't been apart for a long time, and yet the desperation of thinking they'd never see each other again made it seem as if it had been years.

Eventually Rory pulled away with a soft, "Amy". Touching his forehead to hers he said, "It's been such a long year, Amy."

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_So, this is my first attempt at writing fanfiction! I've been looking for good fics of Amy's and Rory's life after TATM, but I couldn't find much, so I decided to try writing one myself - that way I can turn this into whatever I want it to be ;) All mistakes are mine… I really hope you like this first chapter, I have big things planned out already! Leave a review if you like, it'll certainly help improve my writing, plus I'd be very happy! Thanks for reading! _

_Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Doctor Who, nor do I own any of the characters used in this fic. It all belongs to the BBC and Moffat… *sigh*_


	2. Second Chapter

_**Chapter 2**_

"A year?!" She couldn't believe it. The angel had sent her so close to Rory - same city, same time period - yet couldn't have managed to get the timing right? Amy remembered that little smirk on the angel's face… Now she was properly furious. "That stupid angel has done it on purpose!"

"Calm down, Amy, there's nothing to do about that now. And you wouldn't want anyone here thinking you're crazy, right?" Rory chuckled a bit.

"Right," Amy returned his bright smile. At least she was with him again.

"So, everything alright?"

Amy jumped at the sound of another voice breaking into their conversation. It came from not so far away and Amy noticed that it belonged to the woman she had seen walking towards them before.

"Oh, Mary! Sorry, yeah, everything's fine. Um, this is Amy Pond, a friend from back home -" Amy raised her eyebrows at him, that woman had definitely seen the kiss, so it was obvious they're not just 'friends'; and by the way she was mimicking Amy's expression with a smirk, the woman knew exactly what they were, "- whom I somehow lost touch with last year, so this was sort of surprising… Anyway, this is Mary Young, a neighbour of mine. She came here a few years ago from London." Mary gave a little wave which Amy returned.

The young woman had her long light brown hair in big curls with a peek-a-boo bang, and she smiled with a big mouth and a twinkle in her brown eyes. She was dressed in what Amy assumed was pretty normal for that time period, a navy blue dress with its skirt coming down to just below her knees and brown Oxfords.

"Yeah, can't really afford to go back - not the best place to live your life here," Mary laughed.

'My thoughts exactly,' Amy thought, though she couldn't think of a reason why Mary wouldn't want to be there. Being from a different time, Amy knew of privileges that she might never be able to have again, but for a woman from the 40's, New York must be an amazing place to spend your life.

Mary must've sensed Amy's slight wariness because she quickly went to explain, "You know, with my family so far away, and most of my friends don't live here either…" She trailed off, and it was clear that she was extremely uncomfortable with the way Amy was staring at her.

Okay, Amy seriously needed to stop being so paranoid. Travelling with the Doctor had really made her suspect the worst in every situation she found herself in.

At this point, Rory decided to speak up. "Why don't we head back to my flat for a cup of tea? Maybe you and Mary can get to know each other a bit better, and I can tell you all about this past year?"

"Oh, no, I don't want to intrude on your romantic reunion!" Mary winked and laughed at their blushing faces.

They made their way back to their building and Mary turned to Amy when they arrived on their floor.

"Maybe you would like to meet up sometime, get a coffee or something? I'd really like to meet you properly, Amy! Can't rely only on what Rory has told me about you to decide if you're good enough for him, yeah?" She was joking, Amy could see that, but as Mary turned and disappeared into her flat with a final wave, Amy eyed Rory curiously.

"What? We both didn't really have anyone here, so we kind of turned to each other for everything - we've become each other's family, kind of… I may have told her our romantic story and how we've been separated, never to be together again… And, you know, we kind of comforted each other, because you know what? She's also been separated from her loved one and thinks she can never see him again. He's back in England, and they both don't have the money to go to each other! She never told me how she came to be here though… Anyway, this is where I've been living for the past few months."

They were by now standing in a small room that contained a small table with two chairs, an even smaller kitchen area, and a single bed in a corner with a chest right next to it. Only one window lit the room and there were only two doors, one of them was the still open front door, the other, as Rory told her, led to a simple bathroom.

"Oh look at that, back to the single bed," Amy chuckled. "Just like old times when we had our bunk beds and we would have to snuggle close to fit into one…"

In a few quick moves, Rory closed the door, stepped close to Amy and put both of his hands on either side of her face, "I have waited two thousand years for you - and yet that was nothing compared to this one year thinking I would never see you again." He brushed his lips over hers softly, and Amy could feel how much it meant to him being able to finally touch her again. When he pulled back a bit, it wasn't too far because Amy's arms were now tightly wrapped around his waist.

"I feel bad about you having to wait so long when for me it was only yesterday that we happily woke up together…"

"That doesn't really matter now - I've got you back! It's like one of those times when I died and came back again… just that you are the one who died this time. At least from my perspective. Remember how happy you were those times? At least I hope you were happy then…" They both chuckled a bit at that. "I have so much to tell you… but all of that honestly has to wait right now because I am finally holding my wife in my arms again - and you so cleverly mentioned snuggling closely in my bed…"

He wiggled his eyebrows then and Amy finally allowed herself to laugh with him until his lips closed over hers and he slowly moved her backwards towards the bed. There wouldn't be much time for serious conversation for a few hours.

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She woke up hours later to Rory watching her with a soft smile on his lips.

"Morning," he greeted her, "I knew you were a long sleeper, but this is very long - even for you."

"Try hiking New York for twenty-four hours straight, napping a few short hours then go back to the hiking part and end that with hours of passionate love making," she countered groggily but still with a twinkle in her eyes.

"Been there, done that." Rory's content smile died the moment he saw Amy pushing herself up on her elbows and looking over at him with raised eyebrows and an accusing glare. "No. No! That's not what I meant, I-" he sputtered, but Amy had already fallen into a fit of laughter.

"Oh, Rory, it never gets old! You're so self conscious," she laughed, but Rory could tell she didn't mean it in a mean way. She never did. She let herself fall back down next to him. "Anyway… It's been a year! I mean, don't get me wrong, I love that I didn't find you here with someone new, but… a year, Rory! Didn't you lose hope that I might not come back to you or something?"

"I don't know, I suppose I was still grieving - I'd been here for months and the Doctor and you still hadn't shown up, so I thought you couldn't get to me at all or had already given up finding the right time… Either way, I prepared myself to never see you again. It was as if you'd died - and don't you ever think I'd go and find myself some new woman the moment you're not in the picture anymore!"

"I should hope so…" Amy had gone quiet. "You know, you were right about something. Do you remember how hard it was for the Doctor to land the TARDIS in New York in the 30's that day? Probably not, you weren't with us then… but New York is full of paradoxes around this time, so the Doctor really can't ever come back to get us. We'll never see him again…"

"So we're stuck here?"

It took Amy some time to answer. "Yeah." The corners of her mouth turned down with the realisation and Rory quickly gathered her in his arms and held her. After a few moments, Amy buried her mouth in his shoulder and mumbled, "You know what? I'm stuck with you, and that's not so bad, right?"

"Right," came the answer, and Amy strengthened her hold on him, content in just lying there a few more minutes.

"So, tell me about that Mary girl," Amy spoke up eventually. She was curious about what Rory had been up to, and that woman seemed to be most interesting right now.

"Well, as I've said, we're kind of like family. Her family is back in England, and I've told her the same about mine. Let me tell you, it was so hard to find a believable equivalent of what had happened that I could tell people without them declaring me crazy… So when I met Mary - that was a few days after I arrived here at my flat - I just told her that my parents had sent me here. I told her how my parents had found out about my secret sweetheart and wanted me as far away from you as possible, so they surprised me one night and forced me to leave England with no money to return because I should find a respectable woman-"

"Wait," Amy interrupted, "so she probably thinks I'm some weirdo?"

"No! Unlike my parents, Mary has nothing against ginger Scottish girls," Rory grinned.

Amy laughed. "And she believed you that your parents don't let you marry me because I'm ginger?"

"Well, mostly the 'my parents hate Scotland so much' part of it, yeah. Mary says she's met many nice ginger people before, and she has fond memories of Scotland, so I don't think you have to worry too much about her not liking you. Plus, I've been telling her all about you ever since Mary and I became friends. Couldn't stop talking about you. I know a lot about her lover as well."

"Yeah, you mentioned they don't have enough money to get back to each other?"

"Yes. Mary has two jobs at the moment to get enough money to make the trip. During the day she works at a book shop near Central Park and as soon as the sun goes down she's at clubs singing until the early morning hours… Don't ask me how she does it. Today's her day off. She doesn't really want to tell me why she's here in the first place, she just said 'It's a bit like your story'."

"She seems nice, though."

"Yeah, we spend a lot of time together - well, as much as we can with what little time she has left with her two jobs."

"What do you do anyway? Back to being a nurse?"

"Yes, actually! Not many male nurses this time around, but I have the knowledge and didn't really feel like learning something different and getting no payment while still learning it. I was trying to get enough money to get back to England with Mary. I figured, either you'll come and pick me up before that or I'll at least stick with my one and only friend here in the 40's."

There was a knock at the door. "Rory? It's Mary. Is Amy still there? I have to be at the book store in two hours but I thought we could go and eat lunch together. Me and Amy, that is. If you haven't forgotten, your shift starts in half an hour, so you'd better get up!"

"It's almost lunch time?" Amy practically jumped out of bed.

"I didn't realise either!" Ripping open the top drawer of the chest Rory realised he didn't really have anything that Amy could possibly wear in this time period. "Um… Amy? You might want to ask Mary if you can borrow some clothes from her…"

"Aren't you going to open the door?," Mary called, "Or are you not decent yet?" You could hear the grin on Mary's face.

"Actually, would you mind lending me some clothes? I, um, didn't take anything with me when I came here… I had to, um, sell all my things so I could afford the tickets," Amy helplessly looked at Rory, unsure of whether that was believable enough.

Mary chuckled. "Er, ok… I'll be right back."

"You can use some of the money I put aside to go shopping this afternoon, if you want to. Get your own clothes…" Rory pointed at a kitchen drawer. "It's in there. I only have one key, um," he scratched his neck, "I could give it to you if you promise you'll be back here at the flat at, let's see, seven? I can ask to leave early today so you won't be alone too long."

"Yeah, sounds good." Amy thought for a moment. "Don't you think it's weird, Mary wanting to get to know me to, and I quote, 'decide if I'm good enough for you'?"

"Nah, she just cares for me a lot. Like a sister. She worries. Who knows, maybe she didn't believe me when I said my parents hated you because you're Scottish and ginger. Maybe she wants to make sure you really aren't a 'weirdo', as you put it," he mused and smiled at her.

"We'll see how it goes then," Amy said, not really convinced.

This was going to be a long day.

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**A/N:** I am sooo sorry! I know I said I have big things planned, and that's true, I know some of the important points in this story, but other than that I have practically no idea how to write this story into full chapters! Should've thought of that before posting this story... I have to say, I still don't have a proper plan for this story, but I'm working on it and I swear you won't have to wait this long again!

I hope you'll like this chapter, I hope you'll like Mary, and I hope I didn't write Amy and Rory too OOC... It's my first fic, and really the first big thing I have written at all. I'm still learning, so I appreciate reviews, especially if you have some advice for me to make this story better :) All mistakes are mine, I know I'm not fluent in English yet and hope I didn't make too many mistakes in here!

_Disclaimer:_ Unfortunately, the only thing that is mine is the laptop that I use to write this story. All characters belong to the BBC. Well, except for the ones I made up to make this story a bit more interesting ;)


	3. Third Chapter

_**Chapter 3**_

"See you at seven then," Rory called over his shoulder on his way out of the flat. He really had to hurry now to get to the hospital in time. Those few minutes in his flat since Mary had joined them had been a bit awkward. Amy was still unsure about going to lunch with her husband's best female friend, and Rory didn't really know what to say to make her feel better.

It had been weird to see her husband acting so familiar with a person Amy barely knew. She knew Rory had been here a year and that was enough time to grow a close friendship with someone, but for Amy it had been a day, and it was painful to see how much she had missed. It didn't feel like Rory had had an extra year; it felt like she had just found out he had been seeing Mary for a long time without telling Amy, and it hurt, even though she knew exactly how wrong she was.

She knew that her mind just needed a bit more time to process this change, and maybe getting to know Mary would be a big step towards that.

"So, I take it you don't really know your way around New York yet? We still have a good hour and a half for lunch and I know just the place!" Mary seemed immensely happy to have someone to spend lunch with.

Amy thought Mary couldn't have many friends when she was working nearly all day and night, and decided it would be best to be nice to her since she herself could use a friend here, too. "Thanks again for the clothes. Rory told me to go shopping this afternoon, so I'll give these back to you first thing tomorrow - or are you at work then? Rory said you had a lot of work…"

"Oh, yeah, I leave at half eight every morning. Well, except on Wednesdays, like today. But you don't have to give those back if you don't want to! They're way too big for me anyway, and seem to fit you perfectly. They've been lying in my closet for far too long. Good thing I kept them anyway, huh?" She smiled, and Amy couldn't help but feel thankful for that. She didn't think Rory made enough for her to go on a shopping spree, so an extra outfit was a good start for her new wardrobe. Thank God she wore Oxfords when she was sent back, those were great shoes for this time period, and Amy didn't think shoes were low priced enough for her and Rory's budget.

"We should really get going, or we'll have to hurry!" Mary took Amy's hand, pulling her outside, and Amy could just reach out and grab the keys from a little hook on the wall before Mary closed the door behind them and led her down the stairs and out into the sun.

It was a nice day, and it only took them a few minutes to walk down the street and find Mary's favourite little café. After the waitress had come and written down two sets of Mary's "the usual" - little house-made sandwiches ("I swear, they taste better than any other sandwiches you have ever had!") with a cup of Earl Grey tea ("Best you can get in the whole of America - I showed them how to properly make it!") - Amy and Mary started talking.

"Listen, I'm sorry if I've come across as unfriendly yesterday… I guess I was a bit jealous seeing how comfortable Rory has become with you while I wasn't here," Amy started. "But Rory told me about your lost love and that you're trying to get back to him?"

"Yeah, 's been a long time since I last saw him. It was all a bit sudden. A bit like with you and Rory… when my parents found out about us, they decided I should come here and marry some man they thought was better for me. John - that's my love - thought so, too. He didn't have much money and thought he wasn't enough for me. When I came here, I married Jamie. I still loved John, and I still do, but I thought, 'Maybe they are right. Jamie has money, he can give me a comfortable life.' I thought, if John can let me go, I can let him go, too. But I never really stopped loving him. I think I also started loving Jamie a bit. But he died not long after we married, and I found out that he really didn't have much money at all. So I have to work hard to get back to John, and I hope he'll forgive me for marrying someone else. Even though he seemed okay with it, I don't think he was."

"Wow," Amy was baffled. "You've certainly lived through a lot for someone so young."

"Oh, I'm older than I look, believe me!" Mary laughed.

"Rory said you didn't tell him about why you came here in the first place."

"Um, yeah, I don't know why I told you, to be honest… it felt good to talk about it, though."

They were interrupted by the waitress who brought their food and tea. For a few minutes they just sat there and ate, occasionally nipping at their tea.

"Do you happen to know if anyone around here is hiring? Something like a newspaper, or a publisher? Back in England, I've been writing to earn some money and I'd love to get back into that," Amy spoke into the silence.

"You know what? There's a publishing company right next to the book shop I'm working at. I don't know if they're hiring at the moment, but we could visit them before I have to start my shift!" Mary looked at the clock at the far wall of the café. "Speaking of, we should really finish this up and get going, especially if we want to make it to the publisher."

"That's great! Yeah, let me just-" Amy tipped her cup and swallowed the rest of her tea in one big gulp, "See, ready. I don't want you to be late to work because of me."

"Oh, Sally won't mind, we're good friends. And we can still make it. The shop's just around the corner and we still have half an hour left." She smiled and went to the waitress to talk a bit with her and pay for their lunch, and came back to Amy to leave the café.

"So, how much do I owe you?" Amy felt bad about Mary paying for her lunch, especially after she already got a whole good-as-new outfit from her only this morning, but Mary shook her head.

"No worries, Amy. You don't even have a job yet, and I wouldn't want to take any of the money you took with you to buy clothes," she winked, "Just you have a nice shopping trip!"

They made their way around the block without much conversation and soon arrived at a quaint little book store. Right next door was a small dark shop front with a black door. There was little light inside, almost to the point that Amy thought it was closed - but Mary pushed open the door and pulled Amy inside with her.

It looked even smaller on the inside than what Amy had thought when she looked at it from outside. Of course, being only a publisher, there wasn't much use in having a big room to sell things. Amy assumed there had to be a bigger back-room where all the work was done.

A little jingle lured a tall man into the front room upon Mary and Amy's entry.

"Can I help you?" The man's voice was dark and raspy, but friendly enough.

"Yes, actually. My friend Amy here is looking for a job and has a lot of experience in writing." Mary pushed Amy forward.

"Oh! Um, yes, I've been writing for newspapers and even some publishers back in England until I had to move here."

"Do you have any job references?" The man eyed Amy curiously. At least he seemed a bit interested in hiring her already.

Amy bit her lip. "I have to say that leaving England came very suddenly and I packed barely anything at all before I left. If there is any way I could help you here, I'd gladly take that position! Even if I don't get to write at first. You can see for yourself if I am good enough to get published, and until then I can just act as your secretary if you need one."

"I suppose that's fair… I could really use a secretary right now. My last one left only a week ago and I'm really drowning in paperwork. What do you say, you could start writing something and when you've finished it, give it to me and I'll see what I can do. As for the position as my secretary - be here at nine tomorrow morning."

"Wow, yes. Thanks, Mister…?" Amy couldn't help but feel embarrassed for not even knowing her new employer's name.

"It's Thomas Loup. And you are?"

"Amy, Amy Pond - actually, I'm getting married soon, so that will be Williams then," Amy said, quickly deciding that with her new life here, she should start calling herself what she became by marrying Rory so many years before. She couldn't have said that she's already married in front of Mary, though, as the young woman still thought Rory and her had been separated before that could happen.

"Oh, really? In that case, I guess congratulations are in order!" Mister Loup eagerly shook Amy's hand while Mary gave her a surprised look. "I'll see you tomorrow morning then?"

"Nine o'clock, yes!" With a quick goodbye the two women left the publishing house.

"You didn't tell me Rory and you were engaged!" Mary didn't exactly sound accusing, it was just an underlying tone to her otherwise excited voice.

"Well, we actually already secretly decided to marry when we were back in England last year but couldn't tell anyone, so I think I just kept it to myself out of habit. But now that we're both here starting our new life together, we thought we should get married as soon as possible to make up for the lost time." Making all of this up as she went, Amy guiltily thought about everything she and Rory now had to go through again because of her lies. And he didn't even know about it yet. Oh, she couldn't wait to get home and tell him. She just hoped Mary didn't get to him first, because that would be too big of a surprise for him…

"If you just go down this road, you'll come to a few of my favourite shops to buy clothes," Mary now told her. "They're not too expensive, so you can buy lots of nice things for your money. I have to head in now and start working, but you can always come visit me if you're bored. I know I'll be bored. It's not as if many people come to this part of the city a lot, and it's rather sunny outside so I can understand if people prefer sitting outside in Central Park instead of inside some dark little book shop." She laughed. "No, really. I mean it. Please come visit me. Sally might be nice, but she also becomes rather annoying after a few hours. Besides, I heard Rory won't come home until seven, so there's lots of time to stop by!" She smiled one last time and stepped through the door with a little wave that Amy returned with a smile.

Mary really was a nice but curious young woman.

Following Mary's directions, it didn't take Amy long to find some nice looking shops that sold clothes. She promptly went into the first one she saw and looked through the racks, wondering how on earth she was going to find the fitting style for this era. She didn't want to leave this shop with bags full of inappropriate clothing.

She was just about to turn to ask for help around when a voice directly next to her said, "Try this."

Shocked by how familiar that voice was, Amy turned around to meet the smiling eyes of one of the people she had thought she'd never see again.

She just stood there gaping as that person chuckled and said, "Hello, Mum."

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**A/N:** So, this one's been easier to write for me, plus luckily there was no class today so I had plenty of time… I hope you like this chapter and still like my story, I hope you didn't expect a story that focuses on Amy and Rory's "normal" life in the (in this case) 40's exclusively… I decided to make it a bit more interesting :) I am now a bit closer to a detailed plan on how I want this story to go on, and I think this will make it easier for me to write upcoming chapters. I have another university-free day tomorrow, so maybe you'll get another chapter by tomorrow night!

All mistakes are mine.

_Disclaimer:_ If Doctor Who were mine, there would be a lot more information on what their life is like after companions leave, but sadly that is not the case. All of this belongs to the BBC, except for the characters I made up for the benefit of my plot.


	4. Fourth Chapter

**_Chapter 4_**

"River?!" Amy had a hard time believing what she was seeing - then again, River did what she wanted, and she really shouldn't be surprised by anything she did, she'd seen her doing more unbelievable things in the past. "How are you here? The Doctor said it was impossible to get back!"

"Not for me. I've got this, remember," River said, pointing at the vortex manipulator strapped around her wrist.

"Yeah, but don't all these paradoxes keep you from getting here?" Amy was confused. The Doctor had seemed pretty desperate about this subject, so why was River standing in front of her now without the universe imploding or something?

"Paradoxes? It's always been like this with us. We've always met in the wrong order, this is just one more of those times. No need to call it a paradox now." River laughed at her mother's obvious confusion.

"What? But you were there, this has already happened for you, right? I mean, how else would you now about me being here at all?"

But River just looked at her, smirked and said, "Spoilers."

Sometimes, her daughter was really frustrating the hell out of her.

"Ugh, ok. So, when are you then? What have you been up to?"

"Oh, saving little me and you from those things we can barely remember…" She taps a finger to her chin. "You know… there's this little girl in the 60's, all alone in New York City, not even far from this place… and she's about to regenerate for the very first time. Not a thing I like to remember…" Suddenly, she clapped her hands together and looked at Amy expectantly. "But back to you! I take it you've just arrived here? And you're looking for the right clothes? Let me help you. Oh, how I've missed our shopping trips!"

River really had a surprisingly good knowledge about fashion in whichever time period she landed, so it didn't take them long to find enough clothes suitable for the 40's.

After paying for everything, they stepped out of the shop and walked back in the direction of the small book store.

"I'm just gonna tell her you're a friend from England," Amy said quickly. She had told River about her and Rory's new friend and had decided she'd help the poor girl out of her boredom and visit - River sure made an interesting distraction. "I'm not sure if Rory has told her anything about you, though."

She completely missed the string of emotions that played on the other woman's face - there was excitement, interest, but also sadness.

Pushing the door open, Amy found a shop not too different from the publishing house right next to it: it had a dark but also comfortable air about it. It was stuffed to the ceiling with shelves of old books, none of them seeming to be the same. It looked more like the owner had showcased their whole collection here, even the floor was covered with stacks of books. There was even another room in the back, and it seemed to be equally full of books.

The commotion in the front room had lured Mary and an elderly woman from the back of the shop.

"Amy, how nice of you to come by! And I see you brought a friend," Mary called upon seeing them.

"Yeah, I just ran into her in one of the shops you've suggested. She's a good friend, and I only just found out she's here in New York. We met back in Scotland."

"I'm River Song," she introduced herself quickly and shook Mary's hand. She couldn't quite keep her excitement to herself, grinning widely at Mary, to which Amy shot her a questioning look.

"Nice to meet you, River Song," Mary laughed at the other woman's obvious excitement. "I'm Mary Young - but it seems to me that Amy has already told you at least something about me." She smiled. "Anyway, if you want to have a look, I'll stay here and help you if you find something that interests you." She quickly looked in the direction of where the old lady had been standing quietly, watching them.

Understanding that Mary probably wasn't allowed to have too long and private conversations while at work, Amy and River made their way to the back room of the shop and quietly looked through the shelves for a few minutes, until Amy suddenly called out, "Hey, River! Look at this!"

She had found a small, dark blue and very familiar but empty diary wretched between two big domes on history.

"Oh," was all River could reply as soon as Amy had pulled it out of the shelf and showed it to her.

"Hey, I remember getting one of these at my wedding and leaving it with you in that hospital somewhere in the future after Berlin," Amy spoke in hushed tones because she really didn't want Mary and that woman - Sally, she remembered - to think of her as crazy. "Could it be this one? Have you been at my wedding yet?"

"Nah, I'm not much for weddings, but you know that."

"Well, then this is how you get it. This is too much of a coincidence, finding this exact diary here, it must be the same. And you'll probably give it to me soon so I can give it to you!" Amy was already pushing the diary into the hands of a confused looking River, then pulled her back to the front of the shop to buy it.

River laid it down on the counter. Mary's eyes widened a bit at the sight of it, but she quickly composed herself and took the money River was offering her. "That all?" Her smile didn't quite reach her eyes, and it was a look Amy hadn't seen on the young woman yet in the short time she'd known her.

"Yes. Is it okay though? That we bought it? You seem kind of… sad about it." Amy needed to find out what that look meant. It was a book that looked exactly like the TARDIS after all, and these were really an awful lot of coincidences for one small diary.

"Yeah, sure! 'S just, when I started here I kind of hid it back there until I could afford it so no one could find it, but I must've forgotten about it. No worries, though. I'm sure I'll find another nice looking diary," Mary laughed, and it sounded a bit more real than that smile had been.

Amy turned around to exchange a skeptical look with River, but her daughter just smiled at Mary happily. A bit put out, Amy turned back to the young woman as well to say a quick goodbye.

"Hope to see you two again soon! Maybe you want to join Amy and me next time we go to lunch together?" Amy raised her eyebrows at Mary's assumption that they would go to lunch together again, but didn't say anything since she would use any opportunity to get more information on Mary. Something felt weird about her. Did she know the Doctor? Wouldn't she have said anything to Rory if that were the case? Surely Rory had told her about the Doctor? Even if it was just a normal friend in his stories?

"Oh, I don't know when I'll be in New York again, to be honest. But I'll be glad to join you whenever I'm in town." With that Amy and River left the shop.

"Rory said he'd be back at seven, I don't know, do you want to head back to the flat or should we find some pace to sit and talk a bit more?" After thinking she'd lost River forever, Amy couldn't bare thinking she would want to leave so soon. But Amy had been right in the shop - River did what she wanted, and this time, it wasn't any different.

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't. I've got this wedding to attend, and a few other things to do before," She winked.

A few seconds passed without them saying anything. But eventually Amy asked the question that had been bugging her the whole day: "So, when are you going to take us back then?"

"I'm not," River answered, ending a long combination of buttons on her vortex manipulator, and not even Amy's exasperated "Oh, no! Don't you _dare_-!" stopped her from disappearing with a smirk and "bye-bye".

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

When Rory came home that evening, he found Amy sprawled on the small bed looking at the ceiling.

"Guess who I ran in today," Amy said. Her voice was raspy, and when she looked at him, he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed.

"Uh, I don't know," he said urgently, "What happened? Have you been crying?" He sounded concerned and moved quickly towards her, kneeling before the bed.

"She said she wouldn't take us back!" Amy sat up. "She's able to come back but she won't take us back!"

"Who-"

"God, Rory, pay attention! River! She was there, in the shop where I bought all those clothes-" she pointed to the now overflowing chest, "-and then later she said she wouldn't take us back! Can you believe that? How can she be so… so… infuriating?"

"Calm down, Amy!" Rory had long since learned not to let Amy's insults get to him when she was this upset. "How did she even get here? I thought the Doctor said-"

"That it was impossible to come back here, I know! But she didn't know about the paradoxes yet and I think her vortex manipulator can somehow take her here without causing a paradox…"

Rory held up a hand. "Wait, what? What do you mean, 'she didn't know about the paradoxes'?"

"Well, apparently us being sent back hasn't happened for her yet."

"But- How- this doesn't make any sense! How does she know we're here then?" Rory's face was scrunched up in confusion.

"I know, right?!" Amy let herself fall back on the bed. "All she did was say 'Spoilers' - ugh, how I _hate_ that word - and just _smirked_." She covered her face with her arms, then let them fall back down next to her and looked over at Rory. "Can you believe her? How can she be so _selfish_? What, is she happy to have the Doctor to herself now? We're her _parents_!"

Rory was quiet for some time. It was a lot to take in.

"Oh, and we bought her stupid TARDIS diary, found it at Mary's book shop." She sat up again. "You know what, she reacted kind of weirdly when we took it to the counter to buy it. Mary, I mean. She was all… sad-looking. But when I asked - I think she made up some story to cover something up… But wouldn't she have said something if she knew about the Doctor? I mean, you must have mentioned him at some point, right?" When she glanced at Rory then, she found him still as confused as he had been when they'd talked about River.

"I… I'm not sure. I don't think I ever mentioned his name. Don't ask me why, but I never really talked about him. All we did was talk about how we hoped to finally see our loved ones again. And I couldn't very well tell her about travelling with the Doctor, now, could I?"

"Not even an, 'Oh, I've had this friend, the Doctor, we were really close' or something?"

"No, I…" Rory sighed. "I don't know, Amy. How could she know the Doctor anyway? He can't come here, remember?"

"Yeah, but… he can't come _here_. She was in England before," Amy was in full-on investigating mode now. "Maybe that's why she wants to get back! Maybe she knows something about him being there at some point… Even if she doesn't…" She sat up even straighter. "Oh my God, Rory! He can't come _here_! That's it! We just have to leave this place and then the Doctor will be free to pick us up!"

"Okay… So you think we should just try and find him somewhere else?"

"No need to try and find him - we'll just send River to tell him where and when we'll be. If she's reasonable enough to agree to that next time we see her. Maybe she knows this is how it's supposed to happen!"

Rory laughed at how sure Amy seemed to be about the whole thing. "Well, we could keep saving money and go to England with Mary as planned. Maybe she really does know something."

Amy bit her lip. "Do you think we should ask her? She told me her story, even why she had to come here-" Rory made a surprised face at that, "yeah, I'll tell you all about that later - maybe she really only wants to get back to her lover? Wouldn't be good if we told her all about aliens if she really tells the truth and doesn't know a thing."

"Yeah, you're right." Rory thought for a while. "Now we need one more ticket to travel to England…"

"Oh, Mary and I were at a publishing house and I got a job - I'm just a secretary at the moment, but I can start tomorrow and I'll be able to hand in my work and my boss will look at it and decide if I'll be able to work as an author again! So you won't be alone in getting the money for the tickets together."

"That's great! I'll just take a quick shower and then you can tell me all about Mary's story and your new job."

He was already halfway through the bathroom door when he heard Amy calling, "You know, I might've mentioned we were getting married soon…"

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A/N: Hello my dear readers! Here I am again! haha - it's a bit later than I'd thought, but I still didn't let you wait as long as you had to wait for the second chapter… I don't know when I will be able to update again as I have an exam on Tuesday, but I'll try and write as fast as I can!

I hope you like this chapter! Many things are starting to happen (are they?), many things are revealed (or not?), and I really can't wait to see what you think of this development! As always, please review so I know what to do better! All mistakes are mine!

And a big thank you to that lovely Guest reader, I loved your review and thanks for saying that! So sad I can't reply to guest's reviews personally :(

Disclaimer: I only own most of what I make BBC's characters do and say, everything else belongs to them.


	5. Fifth Chapter

**_Chapter 5_**

When Amy entered the publishing house the next morning, Mister Loup was already waiting in the front room for her. She wasn't late, it was even a few minutes before nine o'clock, but it seemed Mister Loup was very eager to show her where she would work. Probably couldn't wait for her to get started on all that paperwork he had amassed in the past week, Amy thought.

"Amy! It's alright if I call you Amy, isn't it?" He was already coming towards her with a bright smile and his hand ready to shake hers. "I suppose I should show you to your desk. Here we are," he led her through the door to the back room, "there's your desk. Right next to mine. It's a bit small in here, and we'll normally be the only ones in here… My clients prefer writing at home and coming 'round to show me their work from time to time, so we rarely see them around here. Your work will be to sort through my mail and any new clients and their work to decide if they're good enough before I read through them. At the moment there aren't so many new clients, but we do get a lot of stories sent here for my little project where I publish short stories from unknown writers, or just common people who want to participate - it's quite popular around here! This season's theme is re-inventing fairytales. I'm sure you'll love reading through those entries!"

He still beamed at Amy. She hadn't had the chance to say a thing in the whole time she'd been there until then, but she'd tried to keep up with this man's frantic babbling.

"Oh, erm, yes, definitely."

"So, I'll be over here at my desk if you have questions or find anything interesting!"

Amy honestly wondered what Mister Loup might have to do if she practically did all his work, but decided it was an interesting enough way to earn money, so she sat down and picked up the first envelope. It was one of the short stories Mister Loup had mentioned, this one was about a girl being treated poorly by her step mother. Great. As if there weren't enough stories about that already. But she decided to read it anyway - she didn't want to throw it away just yet.

By two in the afternoon, Amy had read four more Cinderella stories, a story about a girl kissing a beetle which then turned into her childhood sweetheart she'd thought dead, one Red Riding Hood inspired story told from the wolf's perspective which made little Red Riding Hood the villain, and some other interesting takes on old fairytales. Only about half of them made it over to Mister Loup's desk.

At around half past two, Mister Loup excused himself to have a late lunch with his wife. "I can trust you to run this place while I'm gone?" He laughed - it wasn't like there was much to do anyway. Amy thought he might be a bit naïve to trust people he'd known for barely 24 hours with his shop, but shrugged it off. She wasn't going to do anything stupid, so he wasn't really wrong to trust her so easily.

About twenty minutes after he left, Amy heard the door opening and then closing. She was just about to make her way to the front of the shop when the door to the back opened and in walked River Song, as if she'd done it a thousand times before - but that's what she always did, Amy thought.

This River looked older than the one she had seen the day before. Not much, but Amy could still see the differences.

"Hello, Amy." River's voice wasn't as happy as it usually was, and Amy could clearly see a sad, pitying look in her eyes.

"What happened?" she asked.

"What do you mean, 'what happened'?" River looked confused for a moment. "Ah. Yes. Forgot about that. I already visited you here before now, right? Gets a bit hard to keep up with when I have already met you. Anyway, I've got something for you. It hasn't been too long for you, though, right? You remember the book the Doctor read that day?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, it has to be published at some point. And that has to happen somewhere before 2012 - and I figured, you work at a publishing house, it's before 2012, and…" River trailed off, looking unsure of what she was about to say.

"And…? Just spit it out."

River took a few steps towards Amy. "Well, I figured you could write the afterword. We know the Doctor will read this book, so this is a nice way to say goodbye."

"You mean… I have to say goodbye? Why would I do that? That would just make him sad, and that's not necessary. We're going to meet him again in a few months anyway, so why would I go and make him feel sad?"

"Amy, I won't take you back-"

"And you don't have to. Rory and I have a better plan than that anyway - and you're going to help us with it," Amy said firmly, glaring at her daughter. She still wasn't over River leaving so abruptly after telling Amy she wouldn't help them just the day before.

"Amy, just listen," River pleaded with her. "I already told the Doctor you would write an afterword. So you're going to have to do it either way. And I already know what you want me to do, and I can tell you that I am not going to tell the Doctor to pick you up in England."

"What is wrong with you?" Amy exploded. "Are you really this selfish? Why don't you want us to get back to the Doctor? Do you want him for your own, is that it?"

"No, Amy," River replied softly. "There wouldn't be much time left for me to be with him alone, anyway. He said he'd take me to the Singing Towers of Darillium soon. I know what that means. I've been trying to get him to show them to me for ages, and every time I asked he got this sad look in his eyes, saying 'No, not yet.', like he doesn't want to let me go yet. I have a feeling it is going to be the last time I see him."

"You mean…" Amy couldn't finish that sentence. She didn't want it to be true.

"Yeah. He knows I'm going to die." River looked down. "I've always seen it coming. We live our lives in the opposite order. At some point, I'm going to meet a version of him that doesn't know me, and I could bet he saw me dying that day, the way he looks at me sometimes. I'm not sure if I'll be able to visit you another time after this-"

"What? can't just come in and tell me you're going to die! You haven't even visited Rory yet! Your father! This can't be the last time we meet!" Amy interrupted her. She was starting to panic. She had just stranded in a strange time, her daughter wouldn't help her get back to her best friend, and now she wouldn't even see her daughter again.

In her panic it took her a bit to realise she had met a much younger version of River just yesterday, and she only really understood it when River said, "This is not the last time you meet me. I said goodbye to Rory only yesterday - that won't happen for a long tome for you though. As I said, we meet in the wrong order. You have so many great things to look forward to yet!"

"Yeah, but you're going to die anyway, right? How is that going to console me?" Amy felt silent tears roll down her cheeks.

"I've had a great life. I'm not sad to go."

"Yeah, but I shouldn't have to watch you die before me. That's not how it works."

River sighed then, came around Amy's desk and pulled her into a tight hug. "Thank you. For everything. I love you, Amy. I got to grow up with you, and you have been such a good mother to me. The best I could have had. Don't give up yet." She pulled away slightly. "And tell him I love him. Goodbye, Mum."

And with that, River left her crying mother, unable to see her so sad, leaving the finished script for _The Angel's Kiss_ on her desk.

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After River left, Amy spent half an hour crying. She didn't even notice Mister Loup returning and started when he asked her what happened. Fortunately, he let her leave early when she told him she'd just found out about the death of a close family member.

Amy didn't rush to get home. She didn't know if she should tell Rory. He deserved to know, but River had said she'd say goodbye to him at some point, and she didn't want him to feel sad when he didn't have to yet.

She couldn't return home yet though. She needed comfort. And again she felt utterly alone. She didn't know anyone who would understand her misery, no one she could tell about this complicated part of her life that was her daughter. She didn't have any close enough friends here. The only person that was close enough to a friend was Mary. She didn't want to ask her about the Doctor before she was absolutely certain that Mary knew about him, though. It wouldn't do to scare her only friend away this early with unbelievable stories about aliens and a daughter that was older than her in a time like this where she would certainly be locked away for it.

For now she decided to just go to the park and sit there until she felt better. It would be hours until Rory came home anyway, and she didn't feel like returning to an empty flat when she already felt lonely.

At last she felt like she was going to be okay, so she stood up from the bench she had been sitting on for the past few hours and headed home. Rory probably wasn't there yet, but it wouldn't be long until he was.

At the flat, Amy made a cup of tea. She wasn't hungry yet. She hadn't had anything than a slice of bread that morning but the encounter with River wouldn't let her eat anything for a few hours. She really didn't feel like eating.

Rory came home half an hour later.

"Hey, how was your day?" Amy asked from the small table she occupied, taking a sip from the cup she held in her hands.

"I was just about to ask you that - new job and all. It was fine actually. Met up with Mary for lunch. You should come with us next time. Anyway, how was that new job of yours?" He came up to her grinning. Good. So he didn't notice anything sad about her.

"Actually quite interesting. Nothing special, though." She didn't think she could mention River without showing her sadness, so she left it out completely. "Though I don't know what Mister Loup is actually doing, what with the amount of work I have. I feel like I'm doing his job, judging new clients and their work. Anyway, good that I have something to do, right? It's not a bad way of earning money either, so…" She trailed off.

"Glad you like it. Listen, Mary told me which club she was going to be singing at tonight. Fancy going out? It's got good food as well, so if you haven't eaten yet we could eat out," he suggested.

Amy decided she should take any distraction she could get, and she really should eat something, even if she didn't feel like eating. "Yeah, sounds great. Is it a fancy club? Do I have to change?"

"Yeah, why don't you try one of those new outfits you bought with River yesterday? Mary only sings at fancy places, so you might want to find one of the nice dresses…"

"Wow, thanks, Rory! I thought I look good in whatever I wear?" Amy teased him.

"Yes, you do - but I don't think they'd appreciate you going there with anything less than fancy dress."

Amy groaned. "Alright… I'll change." She stood and walked towards the chest, picking out a dress she was sure Rory would love on her. "I'll take a quick shower then you can have the bathroom. I'll be quick." With that she disappeared through the door and got ready.

Maybe this evening out would give her the distraction she needed.

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**A/N:** Here I am again! Sorry for the wait - I think I'll just say that there'll be weekly updates. Then I'll have a schedule and you don't have to wonder when the next update might come. How does Sunday sound? :) There have been problems with my laptop and my internet connection this week, and I hope they are gone now… Anyway, tell me what you think of this chapter! I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: Still don't own Doctor Who. Unfortunately.


	6. Sixth Chapter

_**Chapter 6**_

When they entered the club an hour later, Amy was wearing her new dark green swing dress. And apparently River had been right about this one, because she could see that most of the other women in the dark room were wearing similar dresses, their skirts swishing when they quickly walked past a dazzled Amy. Walking around the 40's in broad daylight didn't really compare to seeing the buzzing night life.

She almost felt like she was back with the Doctor, on one of their quieter trips where she would get a short glimpse of what life had been in the past, or would be in the future. But Amy realised that this was what she would be seeing for the next few months, and that she was not going to leave this party in the TARDIS.

The new wave of sorrow threatening to fill her dissolved when her eyes settled on Rory, who was talking to one of the waiters. They seemed pretty friendly with each other, and Amy realised again just how much she had missed in the year that Rory had been alone.

She didn't have time to dwell on that for too long, though, because in that moment Rory turned to her and beckoned her to join them.

He seemed to be in the middle of introducing her to the waiter, because when she came nearer and Rory put an arm around her, he said, "She just came here from England a few days ago. Oh, and Amy, this is Ryan. He actually lives in the house right next to ours."

"Nice to meet you, Amy," Ryan said and reached for her hand to shake it lightly.

"Yeah, you too!" Amy smiled. It was a good feeling to get to know more people.

"Why don't you sit down and I'll get back to you when you're settled? You'll be at your usual table?," he asked Rory.

"Yeah, if it's not taken yet? It's packed tonight!"

"I know, right? By now people have heard of our lovely Mary and they come from all over the city to hear her sing. But you know what? Mary told me you'd be here tonight so I reserved your table for you. You know where it is, so I'm just gonna get the menu and not show you to your table, if that's ok with you?" Ryan looked at them expectantly.

"No worries, we'll find our way - and cheers!" Rory put a hand on Ryan's shoulder, then grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her through the crowd to a small table right next to the stage.

"You come here often then?" Amy asked as Rory pulled out her chair for her to sit down, then added, "And you've become such a gentleman!" She said it teasingly, but on the inside she was quite impressed - even though he had always been more of a gentleman than anyone else she'd met.

Rory rolled his eyes and sat down. "I don't have much to do on evenings when I'm not at the hospital. The people here are nice, and Mary's here… She usually comes to this table in her breaks - not sure if she's going to do this tonight, too. She - what did you call it? - she ships us. Finds our story so romantic. I think seeing us gives her hope that she can come back to her lover as well. So this being our first real date since being 'reunited', she'll probably want to leave us alone."

Amy laughed. "Never heard of shipping real people… that's so sweet of her, though - but she really doesn't have to stay away. I wouldn't mind her coming here."

Rory shrugged. "Who knows. If I know her she won't be able to stop herself from checking on us at least once." Amy laughed.

Soon Ryan came back with the menus. "Sorry it took so long. We're all so busy here. It hasn't been this packed in ages! Can I get you something to drink?"

They both chose a drink and, not wanting Ryan to have to come back to them later again, quickly decided they'd have Rory's usual order - a simple but, according to Rory, amazing dish of Spaghetti à la Bolognese.

After Ryan left again, Amy and Rory started talking. Rory still had a lot to tell her. He talked about how he'd found himself in Central Park when the angels sent him back, in broad daylight but hidden behind one of the larger trees, and how he had scared a little girl hiding there from her brother who had been looking for her in a game of hide and seek.

Amy laughed a lot at his story, but had to quiet down when Mary stepped into the light that shone directly onto the stage and greeted her audience for the night. She began with a few slower songs, but soon switched to typical dance music for the 40's. She really did have a nice voice, Amy thought.

It took their food five songs to arrive, and three more songs later Mary came by to say a quick 'hello'. But, as Rory had suggested before, she left rather quickly to give them time to themselves.

When they had finished their food, Rory took Amy's hand and pulled her towards the dance floor. It was difficult to dance when there was barely any space left around them, and Amy didn't even know how to dance to this kind of music at all, but they managed after a few songs with a lot of laughing.

After another five rounds of songs and a bit more drinking and dancing, Rory paid for their food and drinks. The club was about to close for the night, and Mary had come back to them in her last break to ask them if they'd go back to their flat together. By now, Mary, Amy, and Rory, were sitting at the bar, talking to Ryan. They quickly decided to all go together and left within the next five minutes.

Walking behind Mary and Ryan, it was obvious to Amy that Ryan fancied Mary and tried very hard to get her attention. It was a bit sad to watch it, knowing that Mary would leave New York within the next few months to get back to her lover and that Ryan had no chance to get with her whatsoever.

They said goodbye to Ryan when they passed his building, then quietly made their way to their own. They didn't talk much, they were way too tired to say more than a quick 'bye' when they finally reached their floor and stepped into their flats. Amy and Rory didn't waste any time with taking off their clothes and for once just fell into their bed fully clothed, too exhausted to say goodnight to each other.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

Time passed quickly the following few weeks. They woke up in the morning, went to work, met up with Mary at lunch time, got back to work and returned home in the evenings. Sometimes they would visit Mary again at the club.

It was one of those nights at the club when Mary suddenly asked, "So, when's the wedding?"

Amy and Rory shared a slightly panicked look at that. They had talked about that a bit, but had decided that they would wait and see if people would simply forget about it so that they didn't have to pay for everything again when they needed the money so badly. Seemed like they had to go through with it now anyway.

"Ah, we thought we could have a very small ceremony with only the closest friends. After all, we have to save all the money for the tickets to England," Rory finally said.

"And am I one of those closest friends…? I know it's rude to invite myself to your wedding, but... Rory, you know how happy I am for you to finally be with her again! It would mean so much to me if I could see you both getting married!" Mary was sitting on the very edge of her chair, leaning forward with an expectant look on her face.

"We were going to ask you to come anyway," Amy assured her with a smile, thinking back on how Rory had said Mary would ship them - that much was obvious in the happy squeal Amy's answer elicited from her.

"Thank you! Oh, I can't wait! You'll come 'round my flat to get ready, yeah? My mum's been showing me how to do fancy hairdos ever since I was a little girl."

They talked bit more about the wedding until Mary had to go back onstage for her next round of songs.

Not a week later they had everything ready. They were standing in front of a priest, Amy in a cheap second-hand outfit in a light beige colour, Rory in a suit he'd bought a year back, and only Mary and River standing behind them.

Amy was glad River attended this wedding. She hadn't been there the last time, neither as Mels, nor as River (her quick visit at the reception didn't count when they hadn't even known who she was), so when River had appeared in their flat the morning of their wedding it had been a huge relief for Amy to be able to share this with her daughter.

That was the first time Rory had seen her since he got sent back, and at first he couldn't believe his eyes. Sure, Amy had told him about her run-in with her, but seeing River standing before him as if it was the most normal thing in the universe was an entirely different matter.

River quickly left again, with Amy in tow to get her ready in Mary's flat, obviously oblivious to the way Rory was staring at her. It appeared to be an even younger version of the woman Amy had seen on her first real day in the '40s. It couldn't have been long since their adventure in 1938 Berlin, Amy thought.

The ceremony was short. Getting married directly after the Sunday mass in the smallest church around had been the only way for them to get married as soon as possible without having to pay too much, so it really wasn't anything overly special.

There wasn't even a real reception - they just went to their usual café and ate some of the cake they sold there.

Everything was simple and cheap, and Amy didn't mind much - she'd had her perfect wedding already.

River stayed longer than Amy and Rory had expected. She told a few stories about her travels, leaving out the more suspicious sounding things for Mary's sake.

River couldn't have known, but most of what she told them her parents already knew. They'd gotten very detailed versions of those adventures over wine a couple of years before in the back garden of their blue house.

When they got back to Amy and Rory's flat, River came in with them for a few moments, leaving no time for Rory to talk to her alone before she hugged them both and disappeared with a flash.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

They returned to their routine again after that - waking up in the morning, going to work, meeting up with Mary at lunch time, going back to work and returning home in the evenings, a few more visits to Mary's club.

Until one night.

Amy was lying in bed, fast asleep, when suddenly someone was at her side trying to wake her up.

After a few minutes of lightly shaking her arm, the occasional whispered "Amy, wake up!", and shining a light directly into her face, they succeeded and were met with a growled "what?".

The answer came with a smirk on their lips. "Get ready - we're going on a mission!"

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

**A/N:** I know. I know I said Sunday… and I am really sorry! (I'm saying this way too often…) I got conjunctivitis on Saturday afternoon that didn't go away until late Monday evening, and I couldn't see much on my right eye. On top of that I had an exam yesterday (it went really well even though I wasn't able to see much of the stuff I had to revise) so it only left yesterday evening to finish this story up. I promise I'll have the next chapter finished on Sunday! Please tell me what you think of this chapter, or the story in general - I didn't get many reviews until now, but it would be nice to know if I'm doing things right (or not)!

All mistakes are mine.

_Disclaimer:_ I don't own Doctor Who. :(


	7. Seventh Chapter

_**Chapter 7**_

_"Get ready - we're going on a mission!"_

Amy blinked against the blinding light of the torch being pointed right into her eyes. "It's the middle of the night! And stop pointing that torch at my face, River!" she hissed, careful not to wake Rory who would have to be at the hospital in the morning, earlier than usual.

The light went out, and Amy could see that River was wearing all black - black trousers, a partly zipped up black leather jacket over a black shirt, and black boots. She had a black rucksack in her hand, pulling out a similar outfit for Amy.

When Amy sat up, she was greeted by a bundle of clothes which she angrily took, pulling herself out of the warm bed to quickly get dressed. She'd already decided that she'd come along, but that didn't mean she had to like it. Why did River have to barge into her life all the time, without Amy having control over it? Sure, she was relieved she still got to see River a lot despite being stuck, but why did River get to decide the when and where? And _why did it have to be the middle of the night?_

"Care to tell me what you're up to?" Amy whispered while tugging on the clothes.

"You'll find out soon enough. Now come here." River pushed some buttons on her vortex manipulator, then took Amy's hand to lay it on the device before pressing what Amy assumed was the 'go'-button.

Then all she saw was the crackling light of the flash that always accompanied travelling by vortex manipulator and forced her to close her eyes.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

When Amy opened her eyes again, it wasn't much brighter than it had been back at her flat.

"Getting us to the right time and place - check! Now we only have to find her…" River was quietly talking to herself, already on her way to take a look around the corner of the building they had landed behind. "Keep quiet, Amy. We don't know if they are still following her."

"River," Amy started, completely confused and frustrated by her daughter's behaviour, "could you _please_ just tell me what's going on? Who's 'her'? And who's following her? And why did we have to dress up like this?" She pulled on her black jumper beneath her own black leather jacket she had left open. "And most importantly: Why did you have to wake me up for this _in the middle of the night_?"

River looked back at Amy. "I told you, we're on a mission. It just feels more like one if you're wearing all black and doing it in the middle of the night." She turned back to peek around the corner once more. "Ok, this street is clean. Come on." She blindly reached for her mother's hand, not daring to look away.

Amy stubbornly pulled her hand away. "No. Not until you tell me what we're doing here." She crossed her arms across her chest.

This elicited a sigh from River. She reluctantly turned away from the street corner, walking towards Amy, then put a hand on her shoulder. "We're in New York, a few blocks away from your flat. It's 1970, and somewhere around this area, nine-year-old me is going to regenerate in an hour or two. Now, I don't know exactly where that is," River continued, ignoring Amy's attempts to interrupt her, "it has been a long time to be fair, and I was a bit too ill to pay attention to where exactly I was… But let's just walk that way there. We still have time to look for her." By now she was pointing around the corner towards an even quieter and darker part of the city.

"We're going to rescue Melody? I mean, you? She's _dying_?!" Amy's motherly instincts returned in an instant and River could see that there was no stopping Amy from getting to her nine-year-old self.

"Yes. I had been left alone for a few months and hadn't been very healthy to begin with - combined with little food and basically living on the street during winter, well… it wasn't really surprising I died. But that was also the first time I realised I could fix it by regenerating."

"Yeah, yeah, now, come on! We've got to find her!" Now it was Amy pulling her daughter with her, not bothering to check before walking around the corner - then quickly backing away again, keeping her eyes on the creatures before her.

There were now two Silents in the otherwise deserted street. They hadn't noticed Amy and River yet, and were walking away from them, in that weird way they always moved.

"Ok, here's what we're going to do. We're going to follow them - they're almost definitely on their way to get little me back. They've probably been watching her this entire time, seeing how much she could handle before dying. I'm going to keep my eyes on the Silents," She pulled a gun out of the rucksack, "That way you're going to be free to search for little me. I can't touch her - that would be too big of a paradox, and trust me, you don't want to meet the Reapers - so that only leaves one option." She strapped the vortex manipulator from her wrist and wrapped it around Amy's arm. "Right after the regeneration is over, you'll have to run for her. She's going to be a toddler again, and the Silence will do everything to get her back," by now, River was pulling an overwhelmed Amy around the corner, keeping close to the walls, gun pointed towards the Silents, and keeping her voice down so that they could stay hidden, "You'll have to grab her, put her hand onto the vortex manipulator as I did back at your flat, and push that button there," without taking her eyes off the Silents, she pointed to the only round button on the device, "It's a reverse button of sorts, taking you back to the place from which it was activated last but a few minutes later, so you'll end up back at the flat. I'm going to be fighting off the Silence. I'm sorry to have to ask you to do this, but you're going to have to drop off little me at your flat and come straight back. Just push the reverse button again. I won't be able to escape otherwise. That enough information about the mission?"

Still a bit overwhelmed, it took Amy a few seconds to answer. "Yeah. Of course I'll come back."

"Now, it shouldn't be difficult to find Melody. We're going to follow them for as long as we need to, then I'll kill these two. There sure are more out there, but we have to be there faster than them."

They walked like this for a few more minutes, pressed up against the walls of the buildings, River leading the way, keeping her eyes and the gun pointed at the Silents before them.

Then the two Silents suddenly turned around, their alien screams echoing through the night, and their long pointy fingers slowly coming up to point at River and Amy.

"They must have sensed us!" River shot twice and that was all it took for the two creatures to hit the ground with a soft thud. Thankfully, her gun was from far enough in the future to be of the silent kind, so it wouldn't alarm anyone, neither the people living there nor any other Silents that would surely be somewhere around here.

"At least we've come this far without having to search every corner. Come on, I'm gonna keep looking for the Silence and you'll have to find Melody."

Amy warily looked into every street they passed. Before now, she had been too afraid to forget about the creatures as soon as she looked away to look anywhere but them. But now the urge to rescue her little daughter from those very creatures was getting stronger than the fear (probably had to do with the fact that she had partly forgotten about the fear and the creatures) and she kept her eyes moving from dark corner to dark corner.

Suddenly she could hear footsteps running towards them. River raised her gun again, and they pressed further into the shadows.

"Burning… she was… _burning_! Oh God…" There was a tremor in the desperate voice coming from the same direction as the footsteps.

"Oh God, that's her!" Amy took off, ignoring River's yells of protest.

Not letting Amy out of sight, River was soon close behind her mother, gun raised and checking their surroundings for any sign of the Silence.

They soon could see the golden glow of regeneration energy, and Amy turned around the corner of the street where it came from.

There she was, her little girl, in a (at least for Amy) familiar situation. She was reminded of Berlin and how her childhood friend suddenly became her daughter right in front of her eyes.

It had changed her life - just like this would.

She was getting her baby back!

She felt tears coming to her eyes, but blinked them back - she had to get ready to run.

And sure enough, a few seconds later the golden glow subsided and left a bundle of clothes on the ground.

"Amy! Now! They're coming!," she heard River call out to her.

She took a few slow steps towards the now moving bundle before she broke out into a run, picking the baby up in her arms. She put Melody's small hand on the vortex manipulator and held it there with her own, pressing her thumb to the button River had shown her.

Then they disappeared to the sound of infuriated screams of the Silence and the beginnings of River's shooting.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

She reappeared in her flat, the baby in her arms crying. She saw Rory rushing to her side.

She was shocked. This was too surreal. But she had to get back and rescue her daughter a second time for the night, so there was no time to be shocked.

"Here, take her, I'll be right back," Amy pushed the bundle into Rory's arms without much of an explanation - the sooner she got back to River, the better.

So, ignoring Rory's pleas for her to explain, she pushed the same button again and with a crack, Rory and their baby disappeared from her view.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

The first thing she noticed when she arrived in 1970 was that there was no shooting anymore. River was still on alert, holding the gun and pointing it in whichever direction she was looking. Relief flooded through Amy when she saw that River was ok, and she ran towards her.

River abruptly turned around, pointing her gun at Amy, then lowering it when she saw it was her mother.

Amy pulled her into a hug, but River didn't let it linger too long.

"I'm not sure how many of them are still out there, we should get back." River was already pulling the vortex manipulator from Amy's wrist. She put it back on her own arm, and Amy put her hand on the device, now familiar with travelling this way.

A few seconds later they were back at the flat, finding Rory sitting on the bed with a now sleeping Melody in his arms.

He looked up at the sound of their arrival. "Is this…?" He seemed confused but at the same time amazed by what had happened.

"Yes. That's me. Little me." River smiled at her father. "I should be going. Wouldn't want the Reapers to come around here and devour the whole universe. See you!"

Then she was gone, leaving her very confused parents behind.

"That's the second time she said that," Amy finally said.

"What's just happened?"

Amy sighed. She turned out the light, then went back to the bed to settle next to Rory. She pulled Melody out of her husband's arms, and laid her down between them. Then she watched her daughter as she took her thumb into her mouth and smiled in her sleep.

"Why don't you lie back down? It's a very long story."

A half hour later, Amy had finished her story. They were both lying on their sides, watching their daughter sleep peacefully between them.

After a while Rory broke the silence with a whisper. "Do you think this is why she refused to take us back to the Doctor? Because for her this had already happened and she knew we had to raise her here?"

Amy thought back to her first conversation about this with River. "Of course… She didn't want the Doctor for her own. She wanted us! As her parents. Growing up with us in the right way, having a normal childhood… Oh, I feel so bad for calling her selfish now. I mean, it's still selfish, but at least I understand why she did it."

They soon went back to just watching their daughter sleep.

And for the first time, Amy was actually happy to be stuck here.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

**A/N:** Surprise! I'm back with another chapter already! But this one was surprisingly easy to write. This story is far from over though, I've got a few more surprises left for you ;) I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Feel free to tell me what you think about it, whether you liked it or not.

As always, all mistakes are mine!

_Disclaimer:_ No, nothing has changed in the last few days, I still don't own Doctor Who.


	8. Eighth Chapter

_**Chapter 8**_

Amy woke to Melody's crying the next morning. Opening her eyes she saw that Rory had already gone to work.

There was a knock on the door, then she heard a concerned sounding Mary say, "Amy? Is everything okay? Hold on, is that a _baby_?"

After making sure that Melody wouldn't fall out of bed, Amy ran over to the door to let Mary in. The young woman looked positively confused.

"Sorry for the noise, I just woke up myself," Amy said, then walked back to the little girl to pick her up and start consoling her.

"Can I help you? Where do you keep the milk?" Mary was already making her way to the small kitchen area.

Amy frowned in confusion. "Oh. Erm. I haven't thought about that yet. I don't really have any baby food here. Oh, God. What do I do?" She suddenly started to panic. When she had first had Melody, she'd breastfed her - now though, she didn't think her body was able to do that again. And there hadn't really been time last night to get anything from the shops.

Mary came over to her and put a comforting hand on Amy's shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll just pop out and fetch something. I'll be right back. And then you have _got_ to tell me the story because it sure as hell looks to be interesting!" With one more of her typical grins, she waved goodbye and left Amy alone with the crying baby.

When Mary was gone, Amy rocked little Melody a little more. Then Melody gripped her leather jacket tightly in her little hands and Amy realised that she was still wearing her black clothes from the previous night. Oh shit.

Mary hadn't said a thing about it though. That was kind of weird, Amy thought as she laid Melody back on the bed and went to get a dress. Maybe she had been too distracted by the sudden existence of a baby in the flat to notice anything strange. Or maybe, Amy thought, she should drop some hints about the future and see how Mary would react. She wouldn't start that though until Rory was with them again. She still wasn't as close to Mary as Rory was and she felt that Mary would open up to him more likely than she would to Amy - if she really knew something.

When she was dressed, Amy went back to Melody. She was sleeping again, but this time with a frown on her face. Amy sat next to her and just watched.

This version of her daughter looked to be around eight months old, had a fluff of ginger hair on her head, and as she opened her eyes right then, just before she started crying again, Amy could see that her eyes were of a similar green as Rory's eyes. Amy smiled. This time she was a perfect mix of her parents.

Amy looked down and saw that the little girl was still wearing the too big white shirt of her predecessor, sleeves bunched up, the hem reaching down to her kicking feet. That had to be changed as soon as possible.

Mary reappeared a short time later with her arms full of baby stuff. She had really thought of everything. There was different kinds of milk powder, a bottle, and two diapers. They weren't the kind of diapers Amy knew from the future, sure, but she had expected that.

She looked at the pile of goods that Mary had put on the small kitchen table. "Wow, how did you know what to get so fast?"

Mary was already preparing a bottle of milk. "I… I had baby siblings that I had to look after when my Mum wasn't home, which was sort of often… I know a lot about raising little babies." She smiled fondly at the memory, and Amy couldn't help but return that smile. "Now, I believe there was a story you wanted to tell…" Mary threw one of her grins at Amy.

She had been thinking about what she could reveal to Mary and had already thought up a version that was safe to tell.

"Well, I was on a late night stroll around town last night - with Rory, of course," she added, just in case you weren't allowed to leave the house alone at night as a woman. "We heard some crying and followed the sound, and, well, there she was, in a bundle of clothes, just lying there. So I picked her up and - I kind of didn't want to let her go. Rory and I have been trying to get pregnant for a long while now, but we both think that we might not be able to…" She hadn't meant to tell Mary that, and it was so close to the painful truth that she just couldn't help the tears that sprung to her eyes. "We have to see if it's okay for us to adopt her."

"Oh, Amy," Mary said, coming over to the bed to sit down and pull her friend into a hug. "I'm sure you'll get to keep her! Just be happy you found her! God knows what could've happened if you hadn't been there to take her home with you!"

You have no idea, Amy thought. She was incredibly happy to finally be able to hold her daughter in her arms, so relieved the Silence didn't get her.

Mary pulled back and went to get the bottle of milk. "Do you need any help or do you want to try it yourself?"

"I think I can handle it myself," Amy said, picking up Melody, then taking the bottle out of Mary's hand and placing it at Melody's mouth. The baby eagerly took the milk offered to her.

"She's adorable! Have you chosen a name for her yet?" Mary now cooed at the baby, and Melody watched her with curious eyes.

Amy chuckled. It had been such a long time since she named the little girl. "Well, Rory and I decided we should name her after a very close friend of ours. So, Mary, say hello to little Melody Williams," she said, smiling down at her daughter when the baby pulled away from the bottle to laugh at the mention of her name.

Amy wondered how it would work. Technically, the baby in her arms was already a nine-year-old. Now, she was very much what Amy thought a one-year-old would be like - she wasn't able to talk or walk, she communicated through laughter and crying, and she slept a lot. She had recognised her name, though. Was she still that little girl inside her mind, just without the ability to talk and walk? Or was she fully back to being a baby?

They wouldn't find out for a little while, though. They just had to wait until Melody could tell them herself.

Her string of thoughts was interrupted when she heard Mary cooing, "Aw, you already know your name, don't you?" She tickled Melody's stomach, which made the little girl gurgle around the bottle she had returned to a few seconds ago.

It was a Wednesday, so Mary didn't have to leave for work until early afternoon. They talked a bit more about Melody, and Mary gave Amy some more advice on where to buy what. They bathed Melody, then put on one of the diapers and rolled up the sleeves of the white shirt before pulling it over the girl's head again.

When Mary left, Amy went to look for scissors, needle and thread to stitch together a small dress for Melody to wear until they were able to go shopping for clothes. She fondly remembered making even smaller clothes for her Raggedy Man and little Amy dolls when she was little. It didn't take her long to turn the red dress nine-year-old Melody had worn that she had found on one of the kitchen chairs into a smaller version for baby Melody.

She had let her crawl on the floor and explore the flat, but now she went over to where Melody was currently pulling on the lowest drawer of the chest, trying to open it with a concentrated frown on her little face. Amy chuckled at that. Melody wasn't going to get the drawer open, no matter how hard she'd try - it was the place where all things were hidden that might look suspicious to any person living in 1948, and her parents had made sure that really no one would look into that drawer by locking it.

Picking her daughter up, Amy said, "Come here, Melody. Mummy's got a new dress for you - well, sorta." She walked to the bed, laid her down and started freeing Melody of the dirty and way too big shirt. Then she pulled her into a sitting position and put on the red dress. "There you are! Isn't that a way better outfit to continue exploring, hm?" Melody giggled happily when Amy tickled her neck.

It wasn't long until Rory returned from work at around three o'clock. He found Melody back in bed taking a nap and Amy at the kitchen table, mashing potatoes. She looked up when he entered the flat and greeted him with a smile and quiet 'hello'.

He went first to Amy to give her a quick kiss to the forehead, then set down his bag and walked towards Melody, sat down on the bed and simply watched her.

After a few seconds he quietly said, "Do you think she'll need her own bed? I mean, we were saving money for tickets to England, but will we still go? Now that Melody's here, I don't know if you still want to go find the Doctor… What will we do?"

Amy put down the masher. "I… I honestly haven't thought about it until now. I don't know. We could still go - we told Mary we would, and I don't think I can let go of the Doctor yet. Don't get me wrong, I love you and I know that this is the life you've always wanted, but he's still my best friend. I have to at least try and see him again. I know going with him and living that life again is not possible anymore now that we have Melody, but I can't bear thinking I won't ever see him again. I saw how desperate he was when we left him, and I don't want him to be like that… Do you… Are you okay with that?"

Rory sighed. "Yeah. Of course. To be perfectly honest, I miss him terribly myself." Melody was starting to wake by now, and he turned his attention to her. "Then what about Melody? If we really want to go back to England, we have to save all the money we can. But she also needs clothes, and a bed…"

"Well… she could always just sleep in our bed until we leave. It will only be for a few more months, right?"

"Yeah, I guess that's okay. The flat's too small for another bed anyway."

"We'll have to go buy clothes later, though. I made a dress out of the clothes she had on when we got her, but that won't be enough." She stood up and got three plates from the kitchen cupboard. "Now, come on, eat something."

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

Two weeks later, Mary, Rory, Amy, and Melody were sitting in the little café having lunch.

Mister Loup had been surprisingly understanding of the situation - he had bought a few toys and allowed Amy to take her daughter with her to work. Apparently, he was desperate not to lose his only employee so soon. Amy was glad. They really needed the money.

Melody didn't seem to mind being left alone to play while her mother worked on different stories. She really was an easy child. She rarely cried, seemed to like everyone she ever met, and made no fuss whatsoever about going to bed or Amy leaving her with someone else.

So today had been a normal day - Rory went to the hospital, Amy took Melody to work, and now they were meeting Mary at the café.

"Oh! I've got something for you! Almost forgot," Mary suddenly said, pulling her purse into her lap and rummaging through it until she found an envelope. She handed it over to Rory as she continued, "You still want to come, yeah? Back to England?"

Amy watched as Rory opened the envelope and pulled out what seemed to be tickets of sorts. His jaw dropped, and Amy leaned over to look at the blueish paper he held, careful not to let Melody slip off her lap.

Mary was talking again. "It's tickets for the Olympics in London later this year! I hope you're into that… I just thought it would be something nice to do there together once we get there. It might be ages until we get the chance to go to such a thing again. And… I actually already have the money for the trip. And more. Now that so many people come to see me at the club, I get more money. Have been for a long time now. I have more than I need, and I could have gone a long time ago… but I really don't want to leave you here when you want to come with me so badly. Now that you have Melody… You need so much more money for everything else, and I wanted to ask if you still want to come? Or do you want to raise her here?"

"Well… We planned on coming with you anyway - and you've obviously thought about something already," Amy said, glancing at the tickets.

Mary chuckled. "Yeah… As I said. I have more than enough money. I've been working two jobs, and I don't need much. The flat is mine, I don't rent it, so when I sell it I'll have even more… Wow, sorry for the boasting, but… what I want to say: I have enough money to help you with the tickets. You've had a rough time, and now you'll have even less money to put away for the trip because of Melody…"

Amy and Rory shared a look. They'd talked about it, of course. It would take so much longer for them to get the money for the tickets now. No offence to Melody, but she really needed lots of things.

Usually, Amy was opposed to taking money from other people. But she really wanted to get away from this place that the Doctor wouldn't be able to visit. And the Doctor ended up in London unnaturally often for someone who can visit all of space and time.

So she decided they had to accept the offer. "Well… you've already bought the tickets for the Olympics. So we kind of have to go anyway, right?" She winked. "And we won't be able to put away enough money for tickets on our own in the few months that remain until the games… And you really want us to come?"

"I wouldn't be offering if I didn't want you with me. 'sides - would be pretty boring without you anyway!" Mary grinned, the tip of her tongue poking through her teeth.

"But what about John? Won't you meet him there?" Rory looked unsure about asking about John, Amy thought.

And he was probably right about feeling that way, because instantly, Mary's happy facade fell. Her eyebrows drew together in sadness. "Well… I don't really know where to find him. All I know is that he wanted to visit the Olympic Games this summer. That's why I want to go there. But even if I find him there, I'm not sure he wants me back. I mean, he let me go!" Her angry words seemed to surprise even herself, and she deflated again. "'m sorry… 's just… I've waited so long to get back to him. It would hurt too much to find out he doesn't want me back."

"Hey," Amy said and reached over the table to grab her hand. "If you really want us to come with you now, we will! We'll help you any way that we can. Promise." She smiled at Mary until she smiled back.

Mary reached into her bag again. "Good. Because I've already bought the tickets!"

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

**A/N:** First of all: Thanks to all of you for reading this story! And thank you so much for the lovely reviews! Let me know what you think of this chapter :) (it is _so_ hard to find out about life in the late 40's, so sorry if I get anything wrong!)

As always, all mistakes are mine.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. :(


	9. Ninth Chapter

_**Chapter 9**_

Melody looked at her parents from where she was sat on the hip of the neighbour's daughter Barbara as they waved goodbye to her. The last few weeks had gone by in a blur for her.

It had been a bit weird at first to find that she wasn't able to talk or walk anymore. It was all a bit frightening, because technically, she knew how to do those things. But somehow when she opened her mouth, only incomprehensible babble came out, and when she wanted to go to a different place, her little arms and legs automatically shifted into crawling position. When she had tried to pull herself up on her legs, she was mostly only able to take one tiny half-step before she landed on her bum and began to cry.

That was another annoying new thing. She had a very weird urge to cry - a lot. It was also a bit convenient, she had to admit. Whenever she did this, her parents seemed to stop everything at once in order to find out what she needed and to stop her from crying. It was fast service.

She was glad that her mother and that woman with the curly hair, who looked vaguely familiar, had come to save her from those evil people (or was it aliens? She couldn't remember).

It was nice to finally have a real family - and that it was her real mum and dad looking after her was a welcome bonus. She accompanied her mother to work, reading some of the books when her mum wasn't looking (though it was difficult to hold the books with the weak little hands she now had); she liked listening to Mary sing on the rare occasions that her parents took her with them to one of Mary's evening shows; and she liked falling asleep between her parents at night.

She always listened to everything her parents had to say. It was nice to hear their voice, and they talked about a lot of interesting things because they didn't know Melody could understand them.

So when Mary had given her parents tickets to the 1948 Summer Olympics, as well as flight tickets to move to England, she was excited to finally see the country her parents had grown up in.

A few weeks after that, she had watched her parents run around the small flat, putting everything they owned into suitcases, and finally opening the drawer she had always tried to pry open to find out what her parents where hiding in there.

It turned out it was something Melody had vague memories of - two mobile phones (Madame Kovarian had taught her a lot about electronic devices that she had to be able to use at some point in her life, but she only really remembered their names) - as well as clothes that didn't look like the clothes her parents had worn recently, that is, in 1948, but rather like those she had seen them in when they had found her in 1969 and 1970 - both images of space suits and of a woman shooting at the scary men came to her mind - or like those she had seen Mary walk around in in her flat when she had spent a day with her parents' best friend once or twice; and there were also two wallets with ID cards (her mother had shown her the ID saying, "Look at this, Melody, I was so young when I took this photo!" and she had been able to see that her mother had been born in 1989) and a few pounds that, as her dad had noted, were totally useless because they had a Queen on them that wasn't even Queen yet.

Whatever that meant.

Melody had accompanied her mother to work one last time.

"Are you really sure?" Mr. Loup had sounded and looked extremely scared.

"Yes, I'm sorry. We've been planning to go back to England almost as long as I'm here. I've loved working with you, though," her mother had answered, and Melody could see that her mother meant it.

"Well," the old man had said, looking down sadly, "there's really no stopping you. But know that you're always welcome to start working here again if you ever come back to America!"

"I promise I'll think of that." Her mother had smiled, then went back to her desk to put everything she needed into her bag.

Melody watched her mother as she put away one thing after another before stopping, taking a stack of paper out of the bottom of the desk drawer, staring at it for a while. She noticed her mother turning to glance at her, so she quickly resumed "playing" with some random toy, but she didn't miss the strange look her mother gave her before putting the stack of paper into her bag, closing the now empty drawer and looking over the desk to make sure she had everything.

Then they'd said their goodbyes and left.

Not much later they had left New York on a plane to London. Mary had offered her parents to stay with her for a little while until they were able to buy their own flat, and after exchanging a guilty look they had agreed with her (Melody loved that nobody suspected she understood so much of what was said, really. Adults just talked about everything with her around).

Melody hadn't expected a house, though. She and her parents had their own rooms, Mary had one as well, then there were two bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room. There even was a small garden in the back! How she wished she could still run - it would have been nice to be able to play in such a nice garden…

The neighbours were nice, too. She didn't know all of them, but there were Mrs Wright and her daughter Barbara who sometimes looked after Melody when her parents went out with Mary. She liked Barbara. She always talked to her like with everybody else, which was refreshing when other people only talked to her like they would with a baby (what she technically was, but still). So she listened to Barbara telling stories from school, about her dreams of going to university to study all about history, and about all the places she wanted to visit when she was older.

So this was another one of those days where her parents went out with Mary.

Melody waved back at her parents as they got into the cab that was going to take them to the Olympics.

"Let's see what we can do today, hm, Melody?" Barbara shifted her from one hip to the other as she walked back into the house.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

It was yet another day where they attended the Olympics. It was still very interesting, and Amy had to admit that she felt somewhat special to be able to attend such a, well, historical event again. It reminded her of her time with the Doctor, when things like that were an every day thing.

But today she really didn't feel like following Mary around in her search for John.

Mary had been trying to find him for the past five days now, and as she had no idea where to find him, she usually just ran about the place while Rory and Amy stayed and watched the games.

Rory was even quite interested in those, but for Amy it got boring after a while. She also didn't really want to follow Mary around. She'd tried that once, but the young woman was so hard to keep track on that she had soon given up on trying to keep up with her and just went back to Rory, watching the games.

Not today though.

Today she left them both alone and took the tube to central London. She'd had an idea last night and she just wanted to check.

So an hour later she was standing in front of a familiar museum.

She made her way inside and walked around for a bit, then went looking for that familiar box.

She couldn't find it.

Turned out, it had all really been in an alternate timeline after all.

She'd thought she could have visited Rory the Night Guard, tell him everything was going to be alright.

It had been a rubbish idea anyway. He would have wanted to know why she was there, in 1948, all alone. And she couldn't very well tell him.

She shook her head to clear it.

Turning around, she decided she'd look around again, this time paying attention. She walked slowly, looking at all the paintings. Some of them she didn't remember seeing the last time she went here in her own time.

She went through all the different areas of the museum.

Until at some point, she found something _very_ interesting indeed.

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

She dashed through the afternoon crowd, trying to get back to the Wembley Stadium as fast as possible, tapping her fingers impatiently against the seat in the tube, jumping up as soon as she could see the station approaching.

She ran back to the stadium and found, for once, both Rory and Mary sitting in their usual spots, watching athletes running around the stadium round after round.

"Rory!" Her call made several people turn around to look at her curiously, and after Mary tapped his shoulder, Rory looked back at her, too. By then she was already halfway down to where they were sitting.

She made her way through the seats to get to them. When she did, she just looked them in the eyes and said, "You have got to come with me right now. Both of you. You won't believe what I found."

She said it with a serious look, but Rory could see that her eyes shone with excitement, so he stood up and followed the already retreating form of his wife, trusting Mary to come with them.

The three of them went back the way Amy had come. She wouldn't say what exactly she had found, no matter how much Mary and Rory probed her.

Eventually, they left the tube and walked the short distance to the museum. Once inside, Amy took Rory's hand and led him through the different rooms, Mary in tow.

"There," Amy said suddenly, stopping in a room full of statues.

At first, this room had scared the hell out of her. So many stone statues - and she really hated those. But then, in the corner of her eye, she'd seen something, no, someone familiar.

She led Rory further into the room, feeling him tense at the sight of the statues at first, then relax when he realised it wasn't Weeping Angels that had made Amy want to show them this room.

They didn't even realise Mary had stopped at the entrance to the room.

"That's…," Rory tried, but couldn't really finish the sentence.

"I know! She looks exactly like Mary!" Amy turned to look for the young woman, but didn't find her directly behind them as she had expected. Instead, she saw her standing a way back with a small sad smile on her face. "You alright?"

"Yeah," Mary said, walking towards them, eyes never leaving the statue. "'s just, I haven't seen it in years."

"So you knew about it?" Amy stared at her wide-eyed.

"Well, yeah, a friend of mine showed it to me a long time ago - in about the same way that you did, actually." Mary chuckled slightly, a fond look on her face.

"Just around the corner, come on!" They heard someone running down a corridor nearby, shouting at someone else to keep up.

They all turned around to look at the commotion, just as a petite brunette dashed around the corner, gripping the doorway to swing around into the statue room, calling, "See, there it is. I told you, it looks exactly like-"

But by then, another person had skittered to a halt in the entrance of the room.

"Rose."

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

**A/N:** Let me tell you, when I started this story, I wouldn't have thought I'd be writing a part of it in a baby's point of view. Also, sorry for not updating these past few weeks. I had an exam today and a lot to study, but as soon as that was done I wrote this chapter (and a huge part of the next one, so that shouldn't take long). Please tell me what you think of this turn of events! No fear to those who don't like this turn of events (and I expect there to be some to be honest), this will continue to be a story about Amy and Rory!

Disclaimer: I (still) don't own Doctor Who. :(


	10. Tenth Chapter

_**Chapter 10**_

"Have I told you that my great-grandmother took part in the 1948 Summer Olympics?"

The Doctor's head popped up from the other side of the console, where he had been tinkering with a part of the TARDIS. He had neglected his maintenance on the old girl for a few days now. Not that that was a bad thing - the TARDIS had really appreciated not having parts of her dismantled and then put back together for those few days that her Doctor had been distracted.

"She didn't win anything, though," Clara continued from her place against the railing.

"Ah, yes. The Games of the fourteenth Olympiad, first Summer Olympics after the war… And in good old London! Did you know," the Doctor came around the console, already in full rambling mode, "that those were the last games that included an arts competition? Gave one of the artists the idea for the winning statue. Might have also helped him with the more difficult parts." He mimed chiseling a statue with his hands, grinning at Clara, then clapped his hands together abruptly. "Anyway, more participants than ever at any Olympic Games before. First Olympics to be broadcast on television! Been planning to go there for a long time now, actually…" He trailed off, now standing directly in front of Clara, but looking somewhere far away with a frown on his face.

"Could we go?" Clara asked, making the Doctor jump a little before he looked back at her. "I really want to see my great-gran, and you just said you want to go too, so…" She gave him a hopeful smile.

The Doctor just stared at her for a moment then abruptly turned, commencing his dance around the console. "Off we go, then. 1948."

He was feigning his usual enthusiasm, and he could see that Clara was debating asking him what was wrong, but then she shook it off and started to smile in anticipation.

It wasn't really that he didn't want to go - he hadn't been lying when he said he'd wanted to go there for a very long time - it was just something he had wanted to do with… with Rose. Not with anyone else. But Clara wanted to go, and he had (unfortunately) already blurted out he wanted that too, so he couldn't very well tell her he changed his mind now and wouldn't take her there.

She still deserved so much for saving his life a thousand times. He couldn't ever pay her back. So this one little trip, one that she specifically asked for, was something he gladly gave her.

"Soooo, Clara, where exactly shall I land us? What do you want to see?" Clara was now standing beside him at the console, staring up at him as he looked down at her, smiling, but he was missing the excited glimmer in his eyes that he usually possessed when preparing for their next adventure.

"You said something about an art competition? Did they really do that back then?" Clara looked every bit as if she didn't believe him, making the Doctor frown at her.

"Well, yes. And it was a very important competition as well, I'll have you know," he said, his chin in the air.

Clara couldn't help but tease him. "And you're not just saying that because you practically won in that _very_ important competition?"

She laughed at the Doctor's offended expression.

"Right, how about I show you the exhibition, then, first?" The Doctor made his way around the console to type in the coordinates and send the ship into the vortex.

The TARDIS actually shook a lot less than usually, Clara noted as she gripped the railing. She was just about to loosen her grip when the ship made an abrupt turn and she flew off the ground for a few seconds before all movement stopped and she heard the familiar _thump_ of arrival.

She quickly righted her jersey dress and pushed her hair out of the face before following the Doctor to the door.

"Here you go, Clara: the 1948 Summer Olympics!" he called, pushing the door open.

Clara was surprised to see that at least the time was right, judging by the clothes the people were wearing. She could also see several paintings at the wall.

The Doctor was rambling again, walking out of the TARDIS, and Clara hurried to follow him.

"… only art that features sport, so you see, it really is relevant after all," Clara heard him say, but that made her pause.

The paintings she had seen so far had been pretty normal. Some of them she even recognised from previous trips to the museum. But she hadn't really seen any art depicting sport so far.

"Doctor," Clara interrupted him, well, tried to, because the alien just kept babbling on and on about when he'd met that particular sculptor and how he'd helped him quite a lot, yes, and that he'd even go so far as to say that _he_ had won the gold medal and -, "Doctor, are you sure we're in the right place? There hasn't been a single painting about sports yet."

"Oh. Well. Yes, now that you mention it," he turned around on the spot, eyeing the room suspiciously, "this does look like a pretty normal museum. Hm. Don't see anything dangerous around here, though. Why don't you go take a look around while I go have a word with the TARDIS about why she decided to do this again when Clara clearly deserves at least one decent trip without you mucking things up!" By now he was shouting in the general direction of the space ship, making Clara chuckle.

"Alright, you go clear things up with your ship, I'll go look around here," she said with an amused smile on her lips.

The Doctor was already on his way, saying, "Meet me back at the TARDIS when you're done exploring."

"Got it." With that, Clara went in the direction of the next room, spotting some stone statues through the doorway. There were two rows of them, one on each side of the room, some of them had missing arms or other parts of the body. It looked to be white stone statues from the ancient Roman Empire.

She decided she'd have to ask the Doctor to take her there - or ancient Greece, it didn't matter. She just wanted to wear one of those togas like some of the statues were wearing.

Browsing through the rows of statues, she read the small golden signs first before looking at the statue it belonged to. As Clara had expected, there were many Gods and Goddesses, but also some philosophers or warriors.

She first walked along the right side of the room, then, when she arrived at the end, turned around to look at the other side.

She made it to almost the middle of the left row of statues before she read another golden sign, looked up at the statue - and made a double take.

She looked back at the name on the plaque. "Goddess Fortuna, 200 AD. But… I know her. I think." She scrunched up her face in concentration. It must have been in the Doctor's time stream then where she had seen that face before, if she could barely remember the person it belonged to. She looked back up at the statue - and then she saw flashes of brown pinstripes and pink hoodies - and she suddenly remembered.

"Doctor," she whispered, then turned and ran back to the TARDIS.

Not long after that she dashed through the TARDIS door.

"Oh," the Doctor exclaimed, a grin on his face, "Clara, there you are. Now, we are actually not that far off. Just the wrong museum. The TARDIS and I sorted it out, and I believe she will behave herself enough to get us to the right one now," he finished with a stern voice.

"Doctor, you have to come with me, right now." Clara was still standing in the entrance of the space ship, one foot outside in the museum.

"But you wanted to see my sculpture for the arts competition!" The Doctor looked a lot like a little child finding out his parents weren't going to come to his Christmas school performance.

"I might have found out why the TARDIS has landed us here! Come on!"

Clara was out of the door and on her way back to the statue already, so the Doctor cancelled the dematerialisation sequence he had already put in and made to follow her.

She kept yelling encouragements at the Doctor, like "Come on, it's not far from here anymore!" and "You won't believe it, it looks exactly like her!" and then "Just around the corner, come on!".

And there she went, just around the corner, never getting slower so that she had to hold onto the doorway to not run right past the room they were headed.

She could hear the Doctor's footsteps behind her, and see several faces looking at her, but she could also see the statue still standing there, on the left side, surrounded by other statues and some other visitors of the museum, but she didn't dare look anywhere but the statue's face, afraid it would disappear or turn out to be some entirely different face now that the Doctor was with her.

"See, there it is. I told you, it looks exactly like-", she started, but was soon interrupted by the Doctor's strangled voice.

"Rose."

"Yeah, how come there is a statue looking just like her standing in the British Museum?", Clara asked.

The Doctor just walked right past her, making her lift her gaze from the stone face to look over to him where he made his way to the statue.

"Doctor?"

That wasn't her voice, Clara realised, and shifted her gaze further to the small group she had ignored earlier surrounding the statue. Right now, she could only see a woman and a man (though she knew she'd seen another person out of the corner of her eye before, but the Doctor blocked her view), and they too seemed awfully familiar. The redhead was Scottish, and the man with the big nose was called… Nina? No. Rory! Yes. And the woman was Amy, but she hadn't been the one to say the Doctor's name. They'd been the Doctor's companions! They had a look on their faces that told Clara they hadn't expected to see him here. Not travelling with him anymore then, so how had they ended up in 1948?

Amy's attention was on the woman Clara couldn't see. "You know the Doctor?"

Clara decided to find out who had made the Doctor speechless, and took a few more steps towards the group. There was the statue, and right next to it, she could see a woman with brown hair… who turned out to be the statue's model herself.

"Hang on a minute," Rory's confused voice rang out in the room, "You called her Rose. That's not her name… or, is it?"

"How are you here?" The Doctor was talking quietly, and Clara was glad she had moved closer.

"Bad Wolf," Rose said, "She pulled me right through one of the cracks."

"The cracks?" came Amy's voice from behind them, overlapping with Clara's "Bad Wolf? That's what younger you said on Gallifrey, too. Who is that?"

"But that means… you don't exist in Pete's World. That's what happens when you go through the cracks… What about other me?"

A sad smile spread across Rose's face. "He died. A long time ago. As did our children."

"You had children? What happened?"

"Yeah, two girls and a boy. And our grandchildren… Wait, I don't exist anymore, at least not in the other universe - what will happen to them now?" Fear was written all over her face, and Clara was too confused to wonder about the fact that it was impossible for this young woman to have grandchildren. And judging by the expressions on Amy and Rory's faces, she wasn't the only one feeling that way.

"The universe will create a different story for them, don't worry, they won't cease to exist," the Doctor consoled her, pulling her into a hug.

When they parted, Rose reached up to fix his bowtie. "You look good." She was smiling again, tongue in teeth.

"Oh, right! I regenerated! How did you know it was me?"

"You should've seen the look on your face. Only you look at me like that. And only you say my name like that."

"Which brings us back to my question," Rory said, finally having found his voice again. "I thought your name was Mary?"

Rose turned to look at him. "I didn't want any younger version of the Doctor to accidentally find me. We used to have this little game where he showed me some of his previous incarnations, and in turn he looked up my name on the TARDIS so we could look at other Rose Tylers in history. At some point we would have stumbled across me, and that would have been hard to explain. So I changed my name. Mary is for Marion, my middle name. And Young… well, I'm not exactly young anymore, but I do look young, so I thought it fit." She chuckled.

"How old are you?" the Doctor asked in a soft voice.

"Let's not talk about that right now," Rose said, avoiding his gaze. "We can do that later, on the TARDIS… She's here, isn't she?" A fond look crossed her face.

The Doctor took her hand and started to pull her with him towards his ship, saying, "I parked her just around the corner - well, actually -"

"Oi!" Amy's voice cut him off, making him stop abruptly and turn around, with Rose having a hard time following his movements, "You're not gonna just leave us here! Have you even noticed us? You haven't even said hello!"

"Oh," the Doctor said, sounding genuinely surprised to see her there. "Amy! And Rory! When did you get here?"

"Are you serious?" Clara asked, and the Doctor's head whipped around to her as if he'd forgotten about her, too.

Then he turned back to Amy and Rory, grinned broadly and, without letting go of Rose's hand, pulled each of them into a big hug. "Amelia and Rory Pond. This time I really thought I'd lost you…"

"Yeah, he spent some hundred years sulking alone up on a cloud," Clara chimed in.

The Doctor let go of the Ponds and turned to her looking positively offended. "I did not _sulk_. I merely took some time off to catch up on my reading."

"Uh huh," Clara added knowingly.

After one last unconvincing glare in her direction, the Doctor turned back to Amy and Rory. "Anyway. Rose, Ponds, Clara. Back to the TARDIS, we've got lot's of catching up to do."

!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!

**A/N**: I really shouldn't promise things I can't keep. But, this chapter actually was nearly done when I posted the last. Then a day later I found out my uni had re-scheduled important exams so that they were now a month earlier than originally planned… So for the past few weeks all I did was study. And I passed! And now I actually have time to write again! Yay! But I won't promise anything (learned my lesson haha). Tell me if you like this chapter, or if you don't tell me what I can do to make it better!

Series 9 has started! I'm so excited, it looks amazing already :)

All mistakes are mine.

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own Doctor Who.


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